Sixty ways of looking at China: in the past decade, photography in the People's Republic has become a full-blown art form for the first time in half a century. Now two noted scholar-curators offer a major show—and, below, a wide-ranging discussion—designed to acquaint Western audiences with cutting-edge Chinese photographers and video-makers

Art in America, June-July, 2004 by Richard Vine

WH: In addition to such "export" exhibitions organized by the government (often as part of cultural exchanges with other countries), an increasing number of domestic exhibitions have also featured "avant garde" photographers. One such show, focusing on experimental photographers like Miao Xiaochun, was held in December at the art gallery of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Both the Shanghai Biennale and the Guangzhou Triennial in 2002 also included many conceptual photographs.

RV: What commercial opportunities now exist in China for the display and sale of this kind of work?

CP: By and large, there's really no lack of exhibition opportunities for contemporary artists of all stripes inside China. Especially in the big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, young, independent curators are organizing shows in a whole range of venues. In recent years, there've been some extremely interesting group exhibitions presented in Beijing in older buildings slated for demolition. These have sometimes turned into pretty anarchic affairs [see A.i.A., July '01]. Curiously, some very serious and well-organized exhibitions are now appearing in the big new residential complexes that you see springing up all over Beijing. Most of these complexes include one or more enormous meeting halls, and enterprising young curators have been able to secure the use of some of these spaces for group exhibitions, usually by promising the complex manager that their show will be a magnet for publicity.

The commercial opportunities are much more limited. The domestic, market for contemporary art within China is tiny, almost nonexistent. The pattern is for the newly wealthy in China to start by collecting traditional Chinese art and antiques--very much as Japanese collectors did in the first decades of Japanese prosperity after World War II. My own guess is that it will be the next generation of Chinese collectors, many of whom will have studied abroad and developed an enthusiasm for contemporary art, who'll start to seriously buy contemporary Chinese art, and also to encourage the founding of modern and contemporary departments in Chinese museums. For the moment, most of the interest still comes from foreigners--members of the diplomatic community in China, businesspeople and overseas collectors from Europe, the U.S. or Japan. There are a few very committed collectors, such as Artur Walther and Howard Stein in New York, and Eloisa and Chris Haudenschild in San Diego, who've moved quickly to assemble great collections of Chinese photo and video works.

In my experience, however, China remains very much an emerging art market. It's easy to be tempted by the prospect of finding great works at low prices, but you can't forget the uncertainties of the whole situation. There are still only a handful of professional, well-run contemporary galleries, such as Aura Gallery and ShanghArt in Shanghai and Courtyard in Beijing. And you also have to contend with the fact that most Chinese galleries don't so much represent a roster of" artists as sell individual pieces on consignment. In general, the artists still prefer to sell directly from their studios. The idea of splitting the sales price with a gallery seems utterly crazy to them. This weak gallery structure makes the whole question of controlling print editions and photo editions extremely tricky. When you're dealing with an individual artist, you can never be entirely sure that the announced size of a print edition won't mysteriously double of triple. This hasn't stopped private collectors from buying, but it has certainly made curators at major international museums take a wait and-see attitude.